Wireheads
by Cap'n Pirate Monkey
Summary: Cyberpunk AU retelling of FFVII, sort of - in which a genetically altered super-SOLDIER thought long dead hacks into the Lifestream and starts screwing with people's brains; a gang of eco-terrorists steal a cyborg (and ShinRa really want it back); and amidst all this chaos, two men in blue suits and their little ninja sidekick find themselves seriously out of their depths.
1. Chapter 1

The girl's a common thief, when you get right down to it; yeah, there's a whole lot of bluster about martial arts and deadly shuriken and proud, blue-blood Wutai heritage, and yeah, okay, she's got impressive moves, legs like lightning bolts arcing through the air before a foot plants between your eyes and you're seeing stars. But really, she's just a thief.

This is what Reno tells himself shortly after a well-placed boot to the skull prompts a short nap on the Seventh Heaven's floor (and shit, has Rude had a field day with that.) When he wakes up he's fifty gil lighter, and his brain's throbbing in his skull like a rotten tooth, only he's stone cold sober and pretty fucking pissed about it. Rude subs him the money for a drink. He'll expect it back later. There's not a generous bone in his body.

So here he is, then; knocking back Corel whisky (astringent as paint stripper; Reno swears it's stripping the skin from his tongue) and savouring the pleasant numbness spreading through his limbs; a delicious lack of sensation everywhere but that damned lump on his head. Great swollen protrusion like a chocobo's egg, no doubt ruining the careful and deliberate asymmetry of his haircut. They're technically off-duty, but Rude's dragged them to this shitheap bar in the asscrack of nowhere on some kind of fact-finding mission. He's got it in his head that Management – that is, Tseng, unless you count the stick up his ass as an independent being – will very soon ask them to 'apprehend' a particular terrorist collective, active in the local area. And by 'apprehend', he means 'beat to a pulp and hand-deliver to Rufus Shinra in glass specimen jars'.

The collective go by the name 'AVALANCHE' – all caps, like they're yelling it, bunch of fucking morons. They're basically hippies with weapons, and for some reason they all hang out here, in this bar, propping up the rotting eaves with their collective egos. The barmaid's one of them; she's got tits like cantaloupes, unfettered beneath a loose tank top. Not Reno's thing, but Rude's been stealing glances all night. Cute face, though, prettier than most slum broads; dark doe-eyes, terminally serious expression even when she's supposed to be smiling. Guess most patrons aren't too interested in her smile, and she knows her audience well.

They've picked out a couple other likely candidates (Rude's keeping score on the back of a napkin, writing in huge unsubtle letters.) Big black guy, rusting firearm grafted crudely onto the stump of an arm, real low-tech stuff. Definitely a fucking hippy, he stinks of incense and everything. Then there's this middle-aged guy, smoking menthols like they're gonna be taken off the shelves any minute (and they should be, Reno thinks, fucking poison sticks. At least alcohol flushes clean out of your system.) He wears aviator's goggles and an oil-stained t-shirt, cargo pants; no fashion sense whatsoever but not a bad physique for a guy his age. Looks like he could throw a decent punch. Reno's made a mental note not to piss him off. Ever the pedant, Rude's written it down.

The thief girl, though. It's not the first time they've ran into her, although they've never seen her here before. Seems kinda young to be hanging out in a place like this, although it's as good a place as any for a trade like hers; drunk pockets are open pockets, unless it's a Turk's pocket, in which case you'd best be prepared for an electromag nightstick jammed somewhere dark and uncomfortable. He'd never even got round to drawing the nightstick; she was quick as a whip, cartwheeling out of his grasp with a shiteating grin, bright white teeth (definitely not from these parts) and then up, on tippy-toes like a sweet little ballerina, except the other leg swung round like a mace and he saw, as if in slowmotion, a bright yellow sneaker travelling at speed towards the side of his head. Fucking kid's shoes, how'd you figure that? And that was the last thing Reno saw before waking up in a puddle of someone else's spilt beer. Fifty gil gone, and Rude hadn't so much as lifted a finger. "Didn't want to smudge my notes," he said, when Reno'd chewed him out about it, and that was the end of the matter; Rude didn't do glib.

"Think she's one of them?" Reno asks, when the barmaid moves to the other end of the bar.

Rude shrugs. Glances up at the barmaid and back down again, the swell of her tits reflected in the black gloss of his sunglasses, pretends he's not looking. "Could be," he says. "Could be she's an opportunist. Safety in numbers."

"Even so," Reno says, swirling the whisky around in his glass, "stupid to rob your own customers. Talk about shitting on your own doorstep."

"I don't think she's one of them," Rude says. "Might be aiming that way, though. Trying to impress. Makes sense she'd target us. We look suspicious."

"How'd you figure?"

"Look around." Rude nods towards the rest of the bar, a conglomeration of beer-soaked wooden benches and ramshackle chairs made out of scraps. Besides Black Guy and Menthol Cigs, there's only a handful of others in the place; some punk kid with a stupid haircut, bright red pompadour aiming skyward, so drunk he's likely to push all the way back to sober if he keeps on drinking. And a trio of weirdos, some Kung Fu wannabe all in black, watching his nerd girlfriend mash buttons on a handheld console while a fat guy in a yellow shirt and clashing blue bandana snoozes in the corner, the dregs of a cheeseburger crusting in the corners of his mouth. Then there's Reno and Rude, matching blue suits like they're some kind of weird-ass couple (if only Elena were here to make at least one of them look halfway straight.) Not helping the matter, Rude's indoor sunglasses and Reno's personal protective (nightstick, electromag, smoke grenade) hanging from his belt like trophies. So yeah, okay, they do look kind of out-of-place, but if the hippies have noticed they're keeping quiet about the whole thing.

"Might've been personal," Reno suggests. "I kicked her ass last time."

"No," Rude says, mildly. "You didn't."

'Last time' had been on an outing in Sector 5 (that was what Rude called them – 'outings', like they were fucking picnics.) Tech bust of some kind – Reno'd been hazy on the details, wanting only to get paid and get out; never did like wireheads, rows of humans plugged into the Lifestream, wires like tentacles protruding from the backs of their necks, IV's pumping fluid into near-dessicated veins. Staring into nothing but seeing everything, hands twitching, mouths shaping unspoken vowels. Like a room full of ghosts. Anyway, the thief girl found the tech before they did. Never did find out what it was, only that it was Materia-powered and the thief was big on that, didn't much care for the tech itself as long as she could have the Materia inside. Reno, well, he'd have let her crack the stupid thing open and take it, only Rude and Elena were pissy about that – Tseng's orders, apparently, had been to bring it back intact and functional.

So thief girl gets a bit flappy, then, a little agitated, because she wants this fucking stone real bad. And she's got this whole spiel going about how she's a martial arts master, and her dad's some real important guy back in Wutai (shit, anyone with five gil to their name is really important in Wutai, that place is worth the lint in Reno's pocket.) She's got a shuriken the size of a hubcap, and she's waving it around in a way that seems vaguely hazardous to Reno, like she could have someone's eye out if she's not careful. And she says "You're gonna give me the Materia, or I'm gonna have to take it by force." Squeaky little voice, like a mouse. Flushed with indignant anger. Definite rookie.

And damn, if Reno doesn't near piss himself laughing.

Of course, he lives to regret it.

The shuriken misses his head by bare inches, hitting the wall behind him with a noisy thunk. There's a feline hiss and a crackle of static as something mechanical explodes. Just as he thinks he's dodged that particular bullet, she's moving, dodging out of Rude's grasp, spine arced at an angle that surely can't be comfortable. So she's quick, fine, but she's still a rookie kid, and she's about to get a nightstick in the throat if she doesn't settle the fuck down. Reno might not be a hand-to-hand kind of guy but he can move when he needs to. He catches a handful of her hair, pulls her back mid-leap – the force of her momentum nearly yanks his shoulder clean out of its socket, but a little old-fashioned perseverance and he claims his prize; a handful of wriggling, angry little thief girl, dangling by the scalp and screaming obscenities (he assume they're obscenities; he's not well-versed in the girl's mother tongue.) He slams her hard against the wall, one-handed, a show of strength he doesn't really possess – she doesn't weigh much but he's built for speed, not dangling girls by their hair – the air leaves her lungs with an undignified 'oof' sound. Even Rude looks impressed.

He's got a witty quip all lined up but apparently Thief Girl hasn't read the script. She delivers a kick to the crotch with such force that for ten whole minutes Reno finds himself incapable of coherent thought beyond '_sweet gods my balls are on fucking fire_'. Rude and Elena occasionally like to remind him that he wept actual tears in the ensuing minutes, though the facts are disputed. Well, Reno disputes them.

Anyway. That was what, five months ago now? Memories are short in a place like this. People live day to day, which is useful if you're the kind of person who collects grudges like other people collect pin-badges. Maybe she's just a stupid girl who doesn't know when to keep her hands to herself.

Why's he still dwelling on this, anyway?

He drains the last of the whisky. It burns his throat on the way down; he has to force back a splutter. Wouldn't want to look un-manly. "Get me another," he says to Rude, who offers him a single raised eyebrow. Nonetheless, he reaches for his wallet, pulls out a crisp five-gil note and waves it at the barmaid, who obliges them both with one of those too-serious smiles of hers. For such a good-looking broad she doesn't exactly exude confidence, walking slope-shouldered like she does.

"Another glass of your finest gasoline," Reno says, affecting the most irritating smile in his repertoire; he finds it makes people move faster, if only so they don't have to look at him anymore.

But she eyes him critically, gaze travelling to the visible lump on the side of his skull – apparently his hair isn't sufficient camouflage – and says "boy, she really got you good, huh?" Then, at his glass: "Not sure you should be drinking this. You might have a concussion."

"He'd have to have a brain first," Rude says, without humour.

"Fuck you," Reno says, pleasantly. He switches the smile down a few notches, from 'wildly irritating' to 'passes for charming'. "You know that girl?" he asks, affecting casual as easy as shrugging on a jacket.

The barmaid picks a different bottle from the shelf, labelled in some foreign script – looks vaguely Wutaianese – and pours a pale amber liquid into a fresh glass. It looks like heavily diluted urine. "She hangs around here sometimes, but I can't say I know her personally."

"Might want to tell her to tone it down," Reno says. She slides him the glass and he lifts it to his face, sniffing carefully like it might be poison. You never can tell, the shit that passes for edible down here. "She'll scare off your customers."

The barmaid gives a snort of laughter. "She's not usually so, uh, active," she says. "I guess she took a shine to you."

"Expensive getup like that, you boys are walking cash machines." It's Menthol Cigs, though why he's sticking his damn nose in is anyone's guess. Rude consults his napkin encyclopaedia and stays quiet, which is no great feat for him. On the other hand, Reno can practically feel the anger forming a bolus in his stomach. Be Zen, he thinks, although he has no fucking idea what Zen even means except 'not punching strangers in the teeth'. "You're hardly regulars, either. Girls like that can sniff out a rube in seconds."

Who the hell says 'rube' anymore? "Thanks for the tip," Reno says, as neutrally as he can. The drink doesn't smell obviously poisonous, so he knocks it back – best to gulp the whole thing if you don't know how it tastes. As it turns out, it tastes like grass cuttings and cough syrup, and there's not a drop of alcohol as far as he can tell. Disappointing, but not deadly. Not yet, anyway. Menthol Cigs turns back to his drink (is that _tea_? Fucking hippies.) Apparently his well of advice has run dry. Thank the gods for that.

Rude nudges him with the toe of one well-polished loafer. "It's time," he says quietly, inclining his great bald head ever so slightly toward the door. Reno pauses a moment so as not to look suspicious, tilting his glass so the last drops of whatever that pisswater was converge in a tiny puddle. When he's counted five in his head, he gets up, stretches exaggeratedly – hey, he's been unconscious on the floor for at least ten minutes, that shit takes a toll on the body – and glances surreptitiously at the man in the doorway. Not especially tall, although his hair's got to add at least three inches to his overall height – crazy blonde porcupine 'do, like he just stuck his finger in a plug socket. Those eyes, though. They're the bright blue of a career Wirehead, someone who's been jacked into the Lifestream for longer than could be considered healthy – ex-SOLDIER, then, 'cause nobody else gets like that unless their brain's turned to cottage cheese and they're pissing through a catheter.

And then Reno realises who he's looking at.

Well, shit. If it ain't Cloud Strife himself. When did he start pitching for the hippies? Got the right kind of name for it, though – the hell was his mother smoking when she named him?

Rude's expression is all but indecipherable under those stupid sunglasses, but there's a minute twitch of his mouth which suggests he's as surprised as Reno is. Cloud's a ghost, a rumour; he's the kind of guy who everyone's heard of, but can walk into a bar and not a single person will know who they're looking at.

But Reno and Rude, well, they're Turks. It's their job to know who they're looking at.

It's obvious from the way the barmaid's eyes light up that he's not here by chance. She opens her mouth as if to call him; her eyes meet Reno's for a fraction of a moment and she thinks better of it. Well, well, she's got brains _and_ looks, and ain't that just a dangerous combination. Reno, though, he's a sucker for a smart girl, and if she were even remotely his type he'd be in real trouble right about now.

Mr. Ghost isn't half as savvy, it seems; he strides right on up to the bar like he owns the place (hell, maybe he _does)_ and looks the barmaid in the eye, cold as a Junon winter – her disappointment is so tangible you could reach out and snap off a piece. And he says "Tifa, why are there Turks in the bar?" From this angle, Reno can see the scar at the base of his skull, a gnarled hollow of raw pink tissue; the mark of an ex-Wirehead. Careful application of a scalpel would open that port right up again. Just a thought; Reno's never wanted to try it himself.

"Because they're paying real gil, and the rent's got to come from somewhere." She's trying to sound snappy but she's too kittenish for that shit, obviously enamoured as she is with this guy. Then, quietly: "Barret wanted to speak to you."

Cloud gives a curt nod. "He knows where to find me." There's a door to the left of the bar marked 'Staff Only', and that's where he goes, although if he's staff then Reno's a fucking Mog. Tifa – not a local kind of name, Reno notes, and wonders if it's worth adding to Rude's napkin encyclopaedia – she kind of rolls her eyes, like she's used to his petulant child bullshit, and gets right back to work. Like she's thinking, well, fuck, these shot glasses aren't going to polish themselves, and _he_ sure as shit isn't gonna touch them. Great deal you got yourself there, sweetheart.

"This complicates things," Rude mutters.

"Like fuck it does," Reno replies, just quiet enough so the barmaid won't hear him. "You saw his eyes. He's ex-SOLDIER. Brain's probably one concussion away from liquefaction."

Rude raises an eyebrow. "You know a big word? I'm impressed."

"Thanks. I've been reading the thesaurus. Haven't found a good synonym for 'sarcastic piece of shit' yet, though."

The big black guy gets up from his seat, lumbers up and past them through the 'Staff Only' door. Barret, Reno presumes. Guy moves like he's made of concrete, all stiff-limbed and feet thumping on floorboards. He's huge, though – Rude's plenty tall, but this Barret outstrips him by a good four inches or so. Shoulders like a steel girder, supporting thick slab-of-muscle arms. Forget Menthol Cigs; this guy could take your head clean off with a single blow.

Speaking of Menthol Cigs, he's close behind, disappearing through the door maybe twenty seconds after Black Guy. Reno turns to Rude, careful to stay out of Tifa-the-barmaid's earshot – "Looks like the gang's all here."

Rude nods. "Probably more of them out back," he says. "Info I got suggests there's at least six of them."

"Maybe your info's wrong," Reno suggests, a little too cheerfully. Rude's total lack of reaction says he's screwed any chance of another drink. Probably better that way; much as he hates to admit it, whatever Tifa-the-barmaid gave him has worked a damn miracle on his headache, and this sober clarity is kind of a novel thing – not that he's likely to make a habit out of it. "They don't seem to be all that subtle about it. They think we're stupid or something?"

Rude shrugs. Scoops a little pile of coins from his inside pocket and deposits them in a tidy little stack on the bar. "It's more likely they don't give a shit," he says, stepping down off the bar stool. "Thanks to your little pickpocket friend, we probably look like a couple of incompetent goons."

"Great cover though, right?" Reno follows suit, moving delicately – he's a concussion champion these days, he knows all the steps – slow and steady, no sharp head movements, definitely no vigorous sex (he learned that particular lesson the embarrassing way.) Surprisingly, he feels fine. Better than fine; he feels great, like his joints have all been freshly oiled and someone's been at his brain with a feather-duster. His fingers prod lightly at the side of his head. Unless he's very much mistaken – and Reno's _never_ mistaken, or so he likes to think – the lump is already half the size it was.

"Hey, lady," he calls. Kung Fu Kid and his two-nerd entourage each shoot him sour looks, which he ignores, because damn, he feels pretty fucking fine right now. Tifa-the-barmaid looks up from counting Rude's coins (he's probably been over-generous with his tip. He's predictable like that.) and shoots him a quizzical look. She's not intimidated by him in the least, even though she knows what he is, and by extension, the kind of things he does for a living. Hell, maybe Rude's right. Maybe she thinks they're from the dumbass division. "You ought to patent that grass drink thing. It's a goddamn miracle in a bottle." And she shoots him a smile, a real dazzler - the smile she was probably saving for that Cloud asshole before he opened his idiot mouth. He can practically feel Rude tense up next to him. He figures he's pissed the guy off enough already, so he gives a loose salute and leads the way, out into the damp stink and perpetual darkness of the undercity.

"You're not half as charming as you think you are," a familiar voice says, as they exit the bar.

Reno pivots on his feet, reaching instinctively for his electromag, but there's nothing there. Nothing he can see, anyway. Beyond the raised deck of the bar, there's a set of stairs heading down, the lights of a few stores glowing pale in the gloom, an overturned trash can leaking liquid garbage onto the concrete. No obvious source for the sound, unless trash cans secretly gained sentience while they were drinking. Rude shrugs, equally mystified.

"Look up, morons," the voice says.

Against his better judgement, Reno looks up

The thief girl is lodged in the hollow of the porch above them, arms and legs splayed out, starfish-like. How she's up there is a mystery, an act of defiance against gravity; pressed horizontal against the flat of the roof, grinning down at them without the slightest hint of vertigo.

And she says: "Catch."

Reno's entire body tenses up like he's just taken a cattle-prod to the balls, arms raised protectively above his head before he even realises he's done it. And then he hears her giggle, a high, musical sound like someone's thrown a glockenspiel down the stairs. She peels herself off the ceiling and lands, gentle and catlike, on her feet.

"You are such an easy mark," she says, grinning, mouthful of white teeth like sea-smooth pebbles even in the gloom.

"And you owe me fifty gil," he replies, fighting to keep the anger from his voice; he's not about to let her know she's rattled him. He straightens up, shrugs his jacket up over his shoulders. Tries to look casual. Rude's subtly amused smirk suggests he's not doing a great job of it. Fine. She's too busy gloating to notice much, anyway. "The hell do you want anyway? You're harder to get rid of than a hangover."

"You should be nicer to people," the thief-girl says, with a wag of her finger. The hell has she got to be cocky about? Aren't people afraid of Turks anymore? Maybe it's time for a career change. Something that involves more kneecapping and less sitting around making notes on napkins. "They might know things. Things worth more than a little pocket-change." She pulls the little wad of cash from the pocket of her shorts and regards it like it's a piece of already-chewed gum. "Don't pay you much, do they?"

"Yeah, sorry. I left the rest of my fortune in my other wallet. You gonna give that back or am I gonna have to break both your goddamn arms?"

She raises an amused eyebrow. "I'd like to see you try."

Yeah, okay, it stings, being thought incompetent by a girl probably not even old enough to legally drink yet. And the worst thing is, he can't exactly smack her in the mouth for it – he'll look petulant, a sore loser, and she's made him look bad enough as it is. Rude always tells him he's too hotheaded, that he's got to pick his battles a little more carefully, and Reno thinks this probably qualifies. He relaxes his stance, shakes his head. "Keep it, then. Have a wild night out on me. Snort Hyper from a hooker's ass crack or something. Isn't that how you kids have fun nowadays?"

She makes a sour face. "Get bent, Grandpa. I don't care about the money. I just thought it'd be fun to piss you off. Didn't think you'd be so boring."

"Rude's the fun one."

She looks to Rude, who just stares at her, silent and totally unimpressed, a stone pillar in a blue suit. Then, with a sigh, she holds out the money and he takes it, tucking in into his inner pocket this time. She crosses her gawky arms over her chest, like she's cold or something. She might be; she's dressed for warmer climates than this shit pit. Thanks to the gigantic metal pizza blocking out all but the most resilient rays of sunlight, it's nearly always chilly down here, and perpetually damp. Her exposed limbs are like a baby deer's, all long and awkward-looking (except, as the lingering ghost of his bruised skull reminds him, she sure as hell knows what to do with them.) Her shuriken is notably absent this time, although there's a bone knife hanging from her belt loop, a jagged shard of pale ivory. Classy looking thing, polished obsidian handle, probably more ornamental than practical. Still, he wouldn't want to find himself on the business end of it.

"So I'll ask you again," Reno says. "And since I have exactly no time for your teenage bullshit, and Rude here has even less, I suggest you give me a straight answer. What exactly do you want?"

She thinks about it for a little while. Tongue runs across her teeth, peeking through the space between her lips, an unconscious motion. He can practically hear her brain processing, considering the most palatable way to put her proposal across. And there _is_ a proposal in there; he can see it in the way she looks at them both, like she's sizing them up, figuring whether they're the right fit. Whether they pass her minimum competency requirements. And, if she's got half a brain in her head – jury's still out on that one - she'll be thinking hard about what she's going to offer them in return. Hey, he's got rent to pay.

"I don't wanna discuss this on an empty stomach," she says, after a short while. "How about you buy a lady some dinner? I think I've got some information you're really gonna be interested in."

"C'mon, Reno," Rude says. "I'm just about done with kindergarten."

They turn, start to walk down the stairs. She calls after them, shrill: "Wait! Hold up!" They don't wait. There's something immensely satisfying in reminding a cocky brat that she's not the one holding the cards. Her feet pitter-patter on the paving slabs as she follows, skittering frantically in the wake of Rude's giant, splay-legged strides (shit, even Reno has trouble keeping up with him.) "Wait, goddamit, you're gonna regret not listening to me _stop!"_

There's a sudden rush of air above their heads, like someone's just launched a rocket, and they both stop in their tracks, seeking the source. They catch her mid-backwards somersault, spinning over their heads like a fucking superball; she lands effortlessly on her feet, blocking their path, and boy is she pissed.

"Gawd," she says huffily (and just who the fuck says _'gawd'_ these days?) "Look, I'm sorry for bein' all cryptic but I didn't want to talk about it where _they_ might overhear." She checks over her shoulder, continues in a low voice, like she's about to let on to some really dirty secret. "I know something about AVALANCHE. Something really big."

"Yeah, I figured. Thing is, kid, we're not actually that interested in those guys. It's just that Rude thinks the barmaid's got a fantastic rack, and I'd be a real shitty wingman if I didn't enable him, you know?"

She looks mildly appalled at that, like she hadn't considered them capable of that sort of perversion. Even Rude looks sort of flustered. He'll probably chew his ear about it later, but whatever. It's worth it just to get a rise out of the bastard.

"So thing is," Reno continues – damn, it feels good to be in control, to have one-up, even if it is kind of a cheap victory – "we don't actually give much of a fuck what your unwashed hippy pals are doing."

Which is a bit of a lie, because Rude certainly gives a fuck, and he seems to thing Tseng does. It could be suggested that he's cutting his nose off to spite his face, but at this point all Reno really wants to do is go home, drink some decent whiskey and nod off in front of the TV. And anyway, how important can the underground dealings of a bunch of Planet-huggers really be?

"They've stolen a cyborg," the thief girl blurts.

Well.

Shit.


	2. Chapter 2

In the darkness of the basement, she's a pale Madonna, a sculpture carved from flesh and shaped by ceramic synth-bone, a girl in a tank, plugged in and floating. She is serene, naked and glowing in the orange light of a decommissioned jukebox, eyes closed, lips upturned, as if dreaming of pleasant things.

Tifa thinks she's creepy as hell.

Not that she gets a say. None of them know quite what to do with her. She's a ShinRa creation (as evidenced by the seal tattooed on her thigh, an ugly birthmark etched in red) and Tifa has raised the point, politely as always, that perhaps they might be looking to retrieve her. The sudden presence of Turks in the bar certainly points in that direction. But nobody else seems concerned. Cid's too busy complaining about the space project budget being spent on manufacturing giant humanoid sex-toys, and Barrett's just happy to get one-up on those 'damn ShinRa bastards' – the finer details don't interest him much.

And then there's Cloud.

Sometimes, he spends hours down here, just staring at that tank. Staring at the girl inside. It's not that Tifa's jealous, exactly (she's heard that some people…well, _use_ these cyborgs…but Tifa's beginning to doubt that Cloud has any urges to fulfil at all, let alone in such a perverse manner.) She just doesn't get it. What's so fascinating about her? She doesn't move, doesn't breathe; she just floats there in her tank, perfectly still, not even a ripple in the thick, silken liquid that cocoons her like amniotic fluid. She asked him once, and he just kept right on staring, fingers steepled beneath his chin, eyes calm (burning Wirehead-bright in the dark) and he said: "I want to know what she dreams of."

And she replied "Cyborgs don't dream."

"This one does," he said. Then, tracing the outline of her face with one long finger: "Look at the way her eyelids flicker."

So Tifa had watched her awhile, and she'd never felt quite so far away from Cloud as she had in that moment, sitting beside him on a battered couch in a damp, beer-stinking basement, staring into the face of his current obsession. Her childhood friend, so far removed from who he had once been that there's barely a spark of the original left. After a while, she said "I don't see anything."

"You will," he said, "if you look long enough." Never once turning his gaze away from the girl in the tank. And when Tifa finally grew tired of his strange little ritual and retreated to the sanctuary of the bar above, where real people had real conversations and made real eye contact, she knew he wouldn't even notice she was gone.

Yuffie returns around seven, toting a paper bag with 'Boco's BBQ' printed on the side. Inside, paper cartons with foil leads strain at the seams. The smell of hot grease and starch rise from the bag, somehow managing to be both delicious and faintly nauseating.

"Bedtime snack," Yuffie says, when Tifa raises an eyebrow. "Hey, it's not all the time you get a free meal from a pair of gangsters."

"So much for inconspicuous," Tifa says.

Yuffie wipes a smear of chilli sauce from her chin with the back of her hand. "Inconspicuous just makes them more suspicious," she says, perching on a bar stool. "You've got to get in their faces. Dazzle them with the full force of your personality." Which is a roundabout way of saying 'I wouldn't know inconspicuous if it bit me on the ass', but Yuffie's not about to admit to that. "Anyway, it's all in place."

"What exactly did you tell them?" Tifa asks.

Yuffie's breath catches in her chest for a split-second. She swallows it down; Tifa's too guileness to notice, and she's been telling lies since she was old enough to speak. "What you told me to," she says. "You're planning to blow up the Sector 5 reactor. They've got dates, times, everything."

"And they took the bait?"

"They didn't seem particularly bothered," Yuffie says, which is the truth, at least; who gives a fuck about a dying reactor blowing a bunch of no-hope slum dwellers to the Promised Land? Especially not when the late Professor Gast's expensive new toy has wound up in the hands of a group soon to be known as 'Midgar's Most Wanted'. There's going to be a hell of a reward in it; not least because Yuffie's the only one in a position to lead ShinRa's little lost cyborg lamb back to the fold.

Of course, she doesn't tell Tifa any of this. That would somewhat defeat the object. Still, she gets the distinct impression that Tifa would just as soon be rid of that freaky floating flesh-robot. It's the way she looks at it, like it might burst out of its glass cocoon and sink its fangs into her throat. Yuffie's not exactly enamoured with it either, although it's pretty cool in a way.

Robots aren't exactly rare, not in Midgar, where the sky's a giant metal plate designed to keep the elite away from the scum, a steel scab hemming in an infection. What air is left is thick with pollution, and the machines that keep the place functioning also slowly poison the residents to death. As deals go, it's a pretty shit one.

But this. _Her_, as Cloud insists on calling it, which seems kind of weird; sure, it's got female genitals (how creepy is that, Yuffie thinks) but how can you assign a gender to something basically inanimate? All its organic bits were grown in vats; it wasn't born, it was _made_. You don't go round insisting people refer to your fridge as a 'he', right? So far, nobody's figured out how to make it move, or talk, or even whether it's safe to drain the fluid from the tank and let it out. What if it's some kind of murder-bot? She's ShinRa made, after all.

"I guess they'll follow it up with their superiors," Yuffie says, realising she's been silent all this time. Luckily, Tifa seems pretty distracted. Cloud's probably communing with the tank-girl again. If she'd just get her shit together and jump his bones already it'd solve a hell of a lot of problems.

"Let's hope so," Tifa says. She fiddles idly with one augmented knuckle, slipping the synth-skin sheath down to reveal a bright glimpse of titanium. "I don't know how they plan to get the tank out of here otherwise. The bastards have eyes everywhere."

"You're on the explosives team?"

Tifa shakes her head. Her eyes are sad, Yuffie thinks. She's probably pining for the good old days, where the occasional small-scale explosion was as crazy as AVALANCHE got. "I'm driving," she says. "Nobody else knows how to use a gearshift. Cid's got a friend, some sort of disgruntled ex-ShinRa suit. Vincent something-or-other. He and Cid will be doing the dirty work. Cid seems to think highly of him, but…I don't know. I hope they know what they're doing…"

Not exactly a vote of confidence. "What's my job?"

"You?" It's not dismissive; she's really surprised. She shouldn't be. Yuffie's been angling for a proper job in this organisation for a while now. Being stuck on the outskirts and left mostly to her own devices tends to breed boredom, and boredom gets her into trouble. Case in point: getting mixed up in Turk business. (Still, she got a decent meal out of it, at their expense, and pissing off that redhead asshole had almost been payment in itself. Served him right for manhandling her before.)

"Sure." Yuffie sticks an idle hand into the bag of food and comes up with a stray noodle. She dangles it in the air, catches it on her tongue like a snowflake. "I'm multitalented. I can spy, I can fight, I can break things. I can swoop like a swallow and sting like a hornet. Wow, that sounds a lot better in Wutaianese."

Tifa regards her carefully, like she's afraid Yuffie might explode if she gives the wrong answer. Actually, that mog-in-headlights look is sort of Tifa's default. She can snap a man's legs without breaking a sweat, but gods save her from potential confrontation. And for a woman like Tifa, potential confrontation is _everywhere_. What happened, Yuffie wonders, to make her so doubtful of herself? She's ten times saner than Cloud and she never questions his orders, no matter how wacky they sometimes are.

"I'll need to run it past Barret," she says, which is the biggest copout in the history of copouts. Still, it's not a 'no'. Yuffie knows she can't bank on this Turks gig. Even if she does pull it off, there's no guarantee that pair of morons won't try to double-cross her.

And besides. She likes these guys. It's nothing personal, selling them out like this. She needs the cash. _Wutai_ needs the cash. She wishes they'd see it the way she does; her father, trapped and mouldering at the top of the pagoda, sequestered away by those who tell her, with shifty eyes, that her father will surely be erased forever if his whereabouts were to fall into the wrong hands. He and his men did a lot of damage to ShinRa back in the day. Made a lot of enemies. That sort of thing tends to leave a man with a bad reputation, and his many enemies with unfulfilled grudges. And, as it turns out, very little time for his only daughter.

But hey, what's the fate of a shitty backwater nation when you're busy trying to tear chunks in a global corporation?

"Awesome, thanks Tifa!" She gives her a friendly poke on the arm; Tifa seems taken aback, but oddly pleased, like she's forgotten what physical contact with another human being feels like. Maybe she has. It's not like Cloud's exactly lavishing her with attention these days – if he ever did. Hell, that little poke is probably as close to affection as she's come in months.

Now, Yuffie thinks, retreating to a safe space with her dinner-prize; to perfect the fine art of playing _both_ parties for suckers.


End file.
